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The hotel’s lobby.
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Works by Cobi Cockburn.
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Works by Dante Marioni
With a Condé Nast “Gold List” hotel in its midst, is Tacoma still the city of destiny — or a destination city?
For the second year in a row, Condé Nast Traveler has named Tacoma’s Hotel Murano to its infamous Gold List, along with six others from Washington state. The boutique hotel, located in downtown Tacoma and less than a mile from the Museum of Glass, is devoted wholly to glass art and “customized, personalized service.”
Not only that. This year, Hotel Murano was ranked as the top hotel in Washington state with a score of 93.8 on a 100-point scale, finishing just ahead of Seattle’s Hotel 1000, which received a score of 92.1.
“We are blown away because Tacoma is a second-tier city and it’s just amazing that we’re the first and only hotel [in Tacoma] to make the list,” said Dina Nishioka, PR director and spokeswoman for parent company Provenance Hotels. “It’s the glass art collection…but also the service.”
What makes Murano so great? Named after the Italian glass capital of the world, Hotel Murano welcomes visitors with a 104-foot exterior glass and iron sculpture by Greek artist Costas Varotsos and a variety of smaller glass sculptures, including a Dale Chihuly, in the lobby. The glass theme doesn’t end there — each floor of the hotel is devoted to an individual glass artist, with etched panels describing the artist; a “masterpiece” lining the corridors; and sketches and photographs of the artist at work in each room.
Nishioka said Provenance Hotels employs a full-time curator for its five hotels, each of which features a different art genre. (The other four hotels are the Hotel Max in Seattle, the Hotel Lucia and Hotel Deluxe in Portland and the Hotel Preston in Nashville. Of the five, Hotel Murano was the only location to make it to the Gold List.) When the company renovated and rebranded the Hotel Murano in 2008, Curator Tessa Papas, a former gallery owner, traveled the world to hand-pick works from the featured artists.
The extensive glass collection and down-to-earth service were both cited as reasons for the Condé Nast honor. Based on data collected form the publication’s annual Readers’ Choice Survery, the Gold List features the world’s finest hotels and assigns each a rank, based on character, amenities and location.
The hotel claims that its “passion is in the details” for both service and amenities. In addition to LCD flat-screens, high thread-count sheets and organic coffee and tea, the hotel offers a selection of “menus.” Feeling musical? Check out a fully-loaded — and complimentary — iPod in the genre of your choice from the iPod menu. From the hotel’s pillow menu, picky sleepers can choose a soft U-shaped one or a full-length body pillow. The spiritually-minded can peruse the Bible, books on Taoism and Buddhism or a copy of the Quran, all listed on the spiritual menu. The hotel also offers a full-service salon, a day spa, a restaurant and a bar.
Nishioka said guests come to Tacoma for a variety of reasons — for business, to play golf at the nearby Chambers Bay, to visit the Museum of Glass or children who attend the University of Washington, or to spend time with family living on nearby military bases.
The “top hotel” title could drive tourists to Tacoma and help the city continue its downtown redevelopment efforts, which recently suffered a blow following Gov. Chris Gregoire’s massive state budget cuts. The cuts would effectively shutter the Washington State History Museum in downtown Tacoma. The city also recently lost its largest employer, Russell Investments, which in October moved to Seattle where it is walking distance of many of the other hotels on Condé Nast’s list.
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